After Seven Years
by ThickerThanLove
Summary: This whole story sprung from the picture used in the title. An alternative take on Gohan's reunion with his father at the Martial Arts Tournament after 7 long years.


It was a day of new experiences for everyone.

Gohan, for all his experience fighting, had never been to a Tournament. Well, aside from the Cell Games and the less he thought about that, the better. That day would forever be burned in his mind and he'd no desire to linger on it today. This was a day to be celebrated.

His father was coming back.

One day, he said. 24 hours.

It could have been five minutes and that would have been enough. Any time was enough after seven years.

_Seven years. Seven years that didn't have to be. Seven years that wouldn't have been if I had just—_

Shaking his head, Gohan fought the thoughts. They still came, frequently. He'd grown rather accustomed to them and usually focused on distracting himself. Here, with his father so close, with their old friends gathered, the thoughts began to rapid fire.

_Look how many people have gathered just to see Dad. Look how many lives he touched, look how many people long to see him again if only for a few moments._

_Look how many lives you ruined._

Shaking his head again, Gohan grasped his sunglasses and pressed them harder against his face. So many people had asked about his outfit, about why that and why not a gi. They knew he had one.

His answer was partially truthful. He did think the outfit was a neat one. After all, how many people got to dress up as a superhero? How many people got to BE a superhero?

There was something else to it too though that he didn't touch on, that he didn't want to touch on.

He hadn't earned a gi.

Not in front of his father. It was one thing to train with a Goten but he and his father...

After what he...

No. He had no right to a gi.

"Gohan?"

Looking down, he spied Goten tugging on his pant leg. "What's up, squirt?"

"Are you okay," Goten narrowed his eyes. "Your ki feels funny."

Krillin, not too far ahead, laughed. "It's gonna feel funny, kiddo. Your brother hasn't seen your dad in seven years! YOUR ki feels funny too!"

Goten looked up at his mother, "Is that bad?"

ChiChi smiled. "No, sweetie. It just means you're nervous and that's okay. But just you wait, your dad is going to love you."

Goten nodded, though he hardly seemed convinced and stuck as close to ChiChi's leg as he could. Gohan gave him a nod of reassurance but was fearful his mom was handling that. Normally, he would have been babbling about how much Dad would be so excited to find out he had a second son but right now, he didn't have the emotional energy for it.

Gohan shifted his eyes to the left. He still couldn't believe Piccolo came but maybe he should not have been so surprised. For all the airs the Namekian put on not being emotional or caring about his father, Gohan saw right through it.

"...they weren't able to bring him back?"

His mother's voice through his thoughts and he had to admit, the crack and tremble in it was mirrored in his own heart. It was possible after all. The rules of the afterlife were pretty strict and while Goku had certainly earned his fair share of bending them, what if he WASN'T able to come?

The disappointment crashed on his heart like a battlefield. So long and all he wanted was a moment, a simple single moment...

Yamcha and Krillin, as always, pasted a smile with reassurances "No worries, we'll go comb the area."

"Good idea..."

The sound of displaced air was unmistakable. It was a sound Gohan had grown accustomed to both in training and in every day life. The distinct sound of instant transmission.

A turn, a shift of the feet and there he was.

Standing there, not ten feet away, a goofy smile, the small old gi and Baba floating by his side. If not for the halo above his head, you might have thought he was just returning from a fishing trip. "Hey guys! I'm back!"

Voice was the same. Eyes the same. Face the same. Posture the same. Nothing different. Just like it had been the morning of the Cell Games. How he'd laughed during breakfast on the Lookout and set Gohan up on his shoulders for a bit while they waited. How he'd grinned up at him and talked about showing him where the biggest fish swam once the day was over.

The fishing trip they never got to take.

Grandpa had shown him, said there was only one place Goku could have been talking about. He'd been right and the fish had been humongous and just right for a good fish fry. But without Goku there to show him and laugh with him and say how much Gohan resembled a drowned monkey, it wasn't the the same; the fish had tasted coarse and dry despite nothing being different about seasoning or preparation.

Fish still tasted coarse to him.

"Goku!"

"Wow...pinch me."

"Welcome back!"

Gohan heard them, saw them. He saw them trembling, sobbing, fighting to keep in their tears. His father, here again...

"So...are you guys just going to stand there and stare at me all day?"

It was like a switch was thrown and suddenly everyone...Krillin, Yamcha, Bulma, Oolong...they all rushed Goku as if he would vanish any moment. Amid tears, sobbing and choked voices, his father's voice rang out over all else, clear as a bell.

Yet, he couldn't find himself moving. He felt frozen in place. He was vaguely aware of his mother saying how much she missed him and Dad saying he missed her too and then...

"I think there's a little me hiding behind your leg ChiChi."

Of course. Goten.

Prying his eyes away from his father—his here-in-front-of-him father—he saw his little brother lay eyes on their father for the first time.

_Because of you. He only knows him as stories and tales because of you._

"...I'm Goten."

_He has to introduce himself because his father doesn't know him because of you._

"And I'm Goku. Hey!"

_Your own father was robbed of knowing his second child because of you._

Goten stood there, half hidden a good second or two more, unsure, reluctant, before finally rushing out in a rapid 'do it all out or not at all' dash.

_He doesn't know how great Dad is because of you._

_He's afraid to approach him because he's a stranger._

_And he's a stranger BECAUSE OF YOU._

"Hey...Gohan. Aren't you gonna say hello?"

It was like he was hearing it through water. He saw his father put Goten down and he was vaguely aware of Mother saying "Go on, Gohan." Yet he stayed rooted in place, as if bound to the earth.

"...are you mad at me, Gohan?" The slight pout and pain in Goku's voice was impossible to miss.

Mad? Mad at HIM? What did I have to be mad at him about?

At himself, sure. But at Dad...no. No.

"You sure shot up like a weed! You're a giant!"

Oh if he'd been there...

_Your fault! YOU'RE the reason he wasn't there!_

"You're looking well, Gohan. Been showing Goten to eat all those veggies?"

Yes. Yes, I have. I hated it but swallowed them and put on a strong face because you weren't there to do it, Dad.

_Because of YOU_!

"You look like you could keep right on up with me! Piccolo and Vegeta been keeping you on your toes?"

Yes. My style is a mix of them and yours. I tried to keep it just yours. I fought to keep it just yours but the more I sparred with them, the more it changed and I lost it and oh Dad, I'm so sorry...

_BECAUSE OF YOU_!

"Sure have missed all of you. Especially you, little man."

That word. The one stupid, little phrase.

It all came flooding back in images and sounds and smells...

**Hey, that was a good left hook, little man.**

**Bit too slow, little man, tighten your stance.**

**Aw, your mom'll love the flowers, little man.**

**Not a bad try, little man. You're so close to Super Saiyan. Let's go again.**

**I don't care if your fifty, you're always gonna be my little man.**

Likewater through a broken dam, Gohan's feet were suddenly moving, slam, slam, slam against the ground. He pushed his sunglasses up against his forehead, cursing the tears that made his whole vision misty but he could still see the blurry form of black and orange and he leapt for it.

Strong arms wrapped around him and Gohan clamped his own arms around that neck so tightly that a lesser man would have fallen.

But his father was not a lesser man.

Gohan buried his face into the side of Goku's neck, tears freely flowing down his face now and he dug his fingers into that familiar gi and yes, yes, yes, he was here.

"I'm sorry," Gohan found himself saying and it mattered not that he was nearly a grown man himself. Right now, all that guilt, all that pain that he had repressed and let scab over the last seven years was raw and fresh and he might as well had been a little boy again. "I'm so sorry, Daddy."

Goku's hands glided upward, pushed the bandana away (Goten would catch both it and the sunglasses as they fell) and ruffled that head of black hair. "Sorry? What do you have to be sorry about?"

"...my fault." He murmured into his father's neck and only Goku and perhaps Piccolo could make it out. "All my fault. That you've missed all this. My fault."

"Little man. No." Goku kept his time low and the others, out of respect had backed away. "No, none of this was your fault."

"My fault." He repeated. "I did all this to us. My fault."

"Gohan." There was a sharpness to Goku's tone, one rarely heard. "Are you listening to me?"

He nodded, slightly against his father's neck but didn't move otherwise.

"Good cause I know you're smart." Goku gently pushed Gohan away, just slightly so he could look at his face. A face bright red with tears staining his cheeks. "I don't blame you and neither does anyone else. You did the best that you could and that's all I'll ever ask you to do." He rested a hand on his son's cheek, gently rubbing at a few loose tears. "I'm here now, for today. So let's appreciate that, okay?"

That warm smile, the genuineness of those words. Gohan didn't know if he could ever believe them, entirely. If those voices of guilt would ever be utterly silenced. If his heart would ever stop hurting completely.

But for today, with his father here, he could pretend.


End file.
